I started to climb onto the dock. 'Lieutenant Boyle?' The question came from a GI as he offered me a hand.
'That's me,' I said. I took his hand and hoisted myself up. The old man was busy tying up his lines and paid me no mind.
The GI was an MP sergeant dressed in a wool overcoat with a white helmet, white leggings, and a white web belt, all bright and gleaming. It wasn't hard to figure out why GIs called MPs snowdrops.
'Sergeant Patterson, sir. I'm here to take you to the Newcastle area.'
'OK, Sergeant,' I said as we walked off the narrow dock to his jeep. 'After I present myself at division HQ, I'll need to find your quartermaster.'
'I'm not supposed to take you to headquarters, Lieutenant. The provost marshal himself gave me orders to bring you to him.' He took my pack and threw it in the back of the jeep. I pulled my light jacket tight as I climbed in. The canvas cover didn't do much to keep out the chill, which seemed to match my greeting.
'And where is he?'
'Near Newcastle. We're set up in an old factory building. Gives us space for prisoners.'
'This provost marshal, is he your CO?'
'No, that's Lieutenant Burnham, he's the CO of the MP Platoon, 5th Division. Captain Heck is the provost marshal in charge of all military police in Ireland.'
'Northern Ireland,' I said.
'Huh?'
'Patterson, are you Irish?'
'I'm American, Lieutenant. I don't bother much with all that old country stuff.'
'OK, but just remember this is Northern Ireland, which belongs to Great Britain. The Republic of Ireland is a free country.'
'England's a free country too, ain't it, Lieutenant? Ain't that what we're fighting for?'
'Forget it. Tell me why Captain Heck wants to see me. And what the heck kind of name is that anyway?' I had to laugh at my own joke. Patterson didn't.
'Look, sir, Captain Heck don't like jokes. About anything. And about his name even less.'
'What's his first name?'
'Hiram. Hiram Heck.' He couldn't keep a straight face. 'Beats the heck outta me why he wants to see you.' He laughed at his joke, and I was polite enough to join in.
'I can see why he doesn't like to be kidded about his name. Do you know why I'm here, Sergeant?'
'To get your ass chewed out by Captain Heck, Lieutenant. Other than that, no one told me anything.'
We drove along a coast road with a beach to our left. A stiff breeze came off it and Patterson pulled on a pair of woolen gloves. I stuck my hands in my armpits and tried not to shiver. Ahead of us mountains loomed in the distance, their peaks hidden by mist and fog. Tucked beneath them, along the curving shore, was a town. The larger buildings featured black slate roofs and orange brickwork, while the smaller homes and shops were painted pastel shades of blue, green, and yellow. Sheep grazed on the fields to our right, each holding enclosed by a gray stone wall. The sea and the land were beautiful, blues and greens as vibrant as the cold sunlight could make them. But it was the mountains that held my eyes. These, I knew from the map of Ireland I'd had pinned to my bedroom wall growing up, were the Mountains of Mourne, the place from which, according to the legends, Saint Patrick had banished snakes from Ireland.
Patterson pulled a hard right and the peaceful scenery gave way to rows of tightly packed houses, some rundown shops, and a junkyard. A few hundred yards beyond them, he turned onto a side road and parked the jeep in front of a cinderblock building with a corrugated tin roof and loading dock off to the side. It looked like the kind of place in which a Boston mobster could take his time fitting a pair of cement overshoes onto an unlucky guest.
'Here we are, Lieutenant. Let's not keep Holy Heck waiting.'
IT WAS A big room, and cold. Cold like any concrete-and-cinderblock building in a damp, wet climate, the chill climbing through the soles of your feet while your teeth were performing an echoing chatter. I was tired and grimy, still wearing the same lightweight uniform I'd put on in Jerusalem, and I didn't like being rousted like some criminal and pulled in for questioning. Grady O'Brick's warning played in my mind. Was a guy who had lost his fingernails somewhere along the line worth taking advice from?
Patterson pointed me to the far end of the room, where a small stove gave off a glow. Two officers who stared at me didn't. The guy on the right had to be Captain Hiram Heck. He was hogging the warmth and wore a jeep coat, a warm, wool-lined waterproof garment that was in high demand for cold nights at the front but always seemed to be in short supply until you saw rear-area officers looking important and warm in them. Heck was tall, rail thin but not weak, muscle and bone, not much else. His beak nose traced an arc from his eyebrows to his upper lip. He stood with his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels, his feet encased in highly polished, dark brown paratrooper boots. Behind him stood a lieutenant, a less elegantly dressed straightleg. Burnham, I thought, the MP Platoon leader. Two desks were arranged on either side of the stove, close to the heat. A filing cabinet and a pinup of Veronica Lake completed the furnishings.
'Lieutenant William Boyle reporting, sir,' I said as soon as I was close enough to smell his aftershave. I saluted crisply, a proper junior officer. It made Heck respond to me, and I could see it threw him off. He liked that pose of his. He knew his height worked for him, so I got close to show I took no notice.
Heck reluctantly unclasped his hands and tossed off a salute. 'At ease, Boyle,' he said in a voice that sounded like a rasp on metal. 'You look like a bum. What the hell are you dressed for?'
'My apologies, sir. I just traveled from the Mediterranean and haven't drawn supplies yet. I know I look disgraceful, especially to a paratrooper.'
Burnham's eyes were ready to pop out. He shook his head in a friendly warning, but I decided it would be more fun not to mind how I went.
'What on God's green earth are you talking about, Boyle?'
'You, sir. You must be a paratrooper. Those are jump boots, right? And your trousers are bloused. That's the sign of a paratrooper. At the front, no one except the real McCoy would ever dress like that. Where'd you get your wings, Captain Heck?'
'You get this straight, you pipsqueak,' he said, a bony finger prodding my chest. 'You shut up about paratroopers and answer my questions, or so help me I'll throw you in the stockade so damn fast your ass will land in there while your shoes are still on the floor. You read me?'
Now I could smell his breath as well as his aftershave.
'Yes, sir. I'm glad to answer any questions. First, though, allow me to extend the thanks of General Eisenhower and the British chief of staff for the assistance you will render me while I am here.'
'Eisenhower is in North Africa,' Heck snarled. 'This is Northern Ireland. I'm the law here.'
'As far as drunken GIs and traffic jams go, you are. But, as you say, this is Northern Ireland, British territory. Which is why my orders are also from the British chief of staff.' Figuring that Uncle Ike's true location was a military secret, I refrained from informing Heck that Palestine was not part of Africa. Or that my orders, signed by Major Cosgrove as a representative of General Alan Brooke, chief of the Imperial General Staff, were really from MI-5, and probably worthless if anyone ever checked. I'd been in Ireland about an hour and already I was indulging in evasions and keeping secrets.
'GIs and traffic jams! Jesus Christ, Boyle, who do you think you're talking to? I'm the provost marshal, I run the Criminal Investigation Division. Do you really think you can waltz in here and take over this investigation?'
'What investigation, sir? Pilfering of supplies? Theft of jump boots?' I was surprised Heck knew why I was here. I wouldn't have been surprised if a Brit officer had known, but I doubted that MI-5 informed American MPs or CID agents of their plans. I thought if I could get him to blow his top he might scream before he thought.
'Lieutenant Burnham! Arrest this man,' Heck said. He poked his finger at me again, above the sternum, where it hurt. He smiled as he did it.
'What charges, Captain?'
'Disrespect directed against a superior officer. Provoking speech. Put him in a cold cell now.' Heck hooked a thumb toward a door, still smiling.
'Sir,' Patterson said, 'those charges aren't going to make it to court-martial. There are no grounds.'
'You may be right, Sergeant. We'll know in two or three months.' His grin widened.
'Those jump boots are a violation of Article 83,' I said as calmly as I could. 'Or 84, I can never remember.
